OP: Cuisine Insolite - Unique and Exotic Gourmet Food for Special Occasions | Perfect for Dinner Parties, Gifts, and Culinary Adventures

Product Description

Edilux Editeur, 1969. Hardcover. Very Good. First printing.

Raymond Oliver (1909–1990)—chef, restaurateur, and TV personality—is probably best known among our customers for his tour de force published in 1967, La Cuisine. 

Cuisine Insolite, published two years later and which we offer here, is a book we had never seen before but are tickled to know now.

Illustrated by French artist Mose (1917–2003) and designed by Jean Jirou-Najou, it is indeed an unusual book, an achievement of design, illustration, and typesetting. The introduction and table of contents are written and printed in the style of a restaurant menu, laminated and attached with a ribbon; a check from Oliver’s restaurant Grand Vefour, ascribed to “table Bonaparte,” is loosely pasted in “to deduct from your taxes;” and the black clothbound cover is illustrated with an anthropomorphic tureen bearing a fuzzy beard. 

The recipes themselves, of which there are 22, are legitimate and mostly traditional French dishes, i.e. escargot, leek gratin, gâteau jonquille. The accompanying illustrations and typesetting, however, are playful, humorous, and sometimes absurd. For those familiar with Oliver’s culinary philosophy, it will come as no surprise that the three pages dedicated to “diet food” are blank.

The last nine pages resemble a restaurant’s guest book, sparsely signed by celebrities from Dracula to Lucrèce Borgia and Victor Hugo.